A few of the players for the St. Louis Rams chose to make a gesture of support for Mike Brown's family and Ferguson's protesters at Sunday's game, which has inflamed the St. Louis Police Association.
The St. Louis Police Association called on the St Louis Rams and the NFL Sunday night to 'discipline' five St. Louis Rams players who stood with their arms raised in an apparent show of solidarity for Ferguson protesters just before pregame introductions.
A Rams spokesman said Sunday the team was not aware the gesture had been planned before the game against Oakland.
Wide receivers Tavon Austin and Kenny Britt came out together first, with the move obscured by a smoke machine in the upper reaches of the Edward Jones Dome. Stedman Bailey, Jared Cook and Chris Givens — all of whom are black — then came out and stood together with arms raised.
Jeff Roorda is the spokesman for the STLPA and was also behind the online fundraisers for Darren Wilson that generated all of the racist heat and smoke last summer. Given the monumental level of Roorda's own corruption, this statement from him is laughable:
SLPOA Business Manager Jeff Roorda said, "now that the evidence is in and Officer Wilson's account has been verified by physical and ballistic evidence as well as eye-witness testimony, which led the grand jury to conclude that no probable cause existed that Wilson engaged in any wrongdoing, it is unthinkable that hometown athletes would so publicly perpetuate a narrative that has been disproven over-and-over again."
Roorda was incensed that the Rams and the NFL would tolerate such behavior and called it remarkably hypocritical. "All week long, the Rams and the NFL were on the phone with the St. Louis Police Department asking for assurances that the players and the fans would be kept safe from the violent protesters who had rioted, looted, and burned buildings in Ferguson. Our officers have been working 12 hour shifts for over a week, they had days off including Thanksgiving cancelled so that they could defend this community from those on the streets that perpetuate this myth that Michael Brown was executed by a brother police officer and then, as the players and their fans sit safely in their dome under the watchful protection of hundreds of St. Louis's finest, they take to the turf to call a now-exonerated officer a murderer, that is way out-of-bounds, to put it in football parlance," Roorda said.
Please. Darren Wilson was not exonerated. He was let off the hook and that's about it. There's nothing in those thousands of pages of documents that exonerates him unless you're someone who believes in fairy dust and magical beings.
Jeff Roorda must be really proud of himself for the way Darren Wilson got away with that fantasy tale about how it all happened, given his own tendency to file false reports. Just for the record, let this resonate while considering his "outrage" over five players who stood with the Ferguson protesters.
[I]n July 1997, Roorda attempted to try to “cover” for another police officer by filing a report that contained false statements as to what happened during a suspect's apprehension and arrest. As a result of this false report, all charges against the defendant involved were dropped, and Roorda received a written reprimand from B.J. Nelson (the City's Chief of Police at the time) for violating the City Police Department's General Order 74.4 (“False Reporting”).4 The written reprimand issued to Roorda stated, in relevant part: “If it is ever determined again that you have lied in a police report, you will receive a more severe punishment, up to and including termination.”
Guess what? He did it again. Based upon that alone, his chest-beating deserves no attention and certainly there should be no discipline or apology from the players.
